This is my first test on Codea and on Lua.
I spent two days.
I found a bug: When I run the app in Codea, then I switch to Some other app (when Codea loses the focus) and then switch back, my app no more responds to touches. I wanted to use FULLSCREEN_NO_BUTTONS mode, but I was forced to use FULLSCREEN mode.
And I liked both Lua and Codea
Except:
Can’t import custom images (sprites) and sounds
Can’t draw paths (At last, I could’t find how to)
Can’t natively draw texts
Doesn’t include a physics engine
But nevertheless Codea is a great tool for development on iPad. I’m going to write a game in Codea, and then port it to standard Cocoa/Lua environment.
a physics engine (2d) is being worked on, I know. As for text, there’s a few font projects out there - I like the Bitmap fonts in Andrew’s “Cube” demo right now, he’s got a lot of nice features there.
See? Everytime there is a new comer join in, most of the time s/he asks for the same questions, again and again. That’s why I proposed to provide basic features as built-in feature, not external. No matter how good external libraries are, they won’t be directly accessible by new comers/beginners because it requires additional efforts. In some cases, this will make them leave Codea for something else (better). At least, bundle those external useful user-generated libraries into Codea (in the next update).
Fact is - newcomers will always ask about features they can’t find. Doesn’t mean they all are important to add, although things like a font would be darn handy.
Where is my speech recognition? Ah - clearly it should be added, immediately! (you can’t deny it would be both handy and awesome… who needs a keyboard?)
@bee those are all features we are adding as native features: text, physics, custom sprites, polygon drawing. You make it sound like we won’t add them.
And - when they’re added, the newcomers will ask for more - and that’s fine.
It will always and forever more be the case that someone somewhere will want something that isn’t built-in to Codea. Users need to learn to access the resources available to them - this forum, the wiki, and google - to accomplish their goals.
@Simeon: I’m sorry if it sounds that way, I didn’t mean to. I know they will be added in the future update. What I meant was TLL seems to be hesitant to implement some features because they can be done by users themselves or by using users custom libraries. I don’t mean to be unthankful and rude. I apologize if it sounds like I do.
@bee the particular features requested by @topchiyev are ones we plan to include natively. I think @John is almost done with the physics API and docs, too. He’s made an awesome game with it.
I don’t think TLL has ever been hesitant, per se - I think their time and manpower are limited, and they also need to walk the narrow ledge of apple approval. They’re actually getting new features in pretty quick from what I can tell - it’s been what, 3 months, and like 5 updates? At least a few, and frequency is very much determined by Apple’s approval process…
Fact is, they don’t want to do stuff for new coders, or stuff for advanced coders - they’d like to do BOTH, I’ll bet. But - you can’t, not with any quality. I’d rather they take their time and do it right than rush.
Heh - I hear that! My fondest wish for my font code is for people to look at it like you would a washboard or horse-drawn carriage, or frankly a dial phone or acoustic modem, and say “Huh? you had to do what? Why didn’t you just use the built-in… oh. How crude.”
